Vae Victishttp://vaevictis.it
Independent Game Development StudioThu, 29 Nov 2018 11:47:40 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.9It’s your turn! Racecraft out now!http://vaevictis.it/2016/03/05/its-your-turn-racecraft-out-now/
http://vaevictis.it/2016/03/05/its-your-turn-racecraft-out-now/#respondFri, 04 Mar 2016 22:35:57 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=2352After 1 year in development, Racecraft is out NOW on Steam with its innovative PROCEDURAL technology! For the FIRST TIME ever in a racing game, players can create an endless number of realistic racetracks and craft their car to reach the top in every race and eSports event.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2016/03/05/its-your-turn-racecraft-out-now/feed/0Victory: The Age of Racing goes Free!http://vaevictis.it/2016/02/08/victory-the-age-of-racing-goes-free/
http://vaevictis.it/2016/02/08/victory-the-age-of-racing-goes-free/#respondMon, 08 Feb 2016 15:51:18 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=2317Did you know Victory: The Age of Racing? It was the first racing game from Vae Victis Games, a unique online racer with spectacular car handling and user generated cars inspired by the different ages of racing. Victory offers a thrilling racing experience through multiplayer events and an addictive team career.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2016/02/08/victory-the-age-of-racing-goes-free/feed/0Vae Victis at Gamescom 2015http://vaevictis.it/2015/07/16/vae-victis-at-gamescom-2015/
http://vaevictis.it/2015/07/16/vae-victis-at-gamescom-2015/#respondThu, 16 Jul 2015 10:00:37 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=2308Vae Victis will be at Gamescom 2015 in Cologne, Germany. Please contact us if you want to have a business meeting. You will find us inside the Games in Italy booth, Hall 3.2 – Stand A036G.

You will be able to test the first tech demo of Racecraft inside our booth, contact us to book a test drive.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2015/07/16/vae-victis-at-gamescom-2015/feed/0Racecraft: Free for all Victory playershttp://vaevictis.it/2015/07/16/racecraft-free-for-all-victory-players/
http://vaevictis.it/2015/07/16/racecraft-free-for-all-victory-players/#respondThu, 16 Jul 2015 09:27:36 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=2303Hey guys! Long time passed, but we didn’t stop working on Racecraft: we’ve just announced it on a brand-new dev blog we created to give you an inside view of the development of our new ambitious racing game featuring procedural technology, we already published lots of articles and behind-the-scenes, check it out.

We will show the first build of Racecraft at next Gamescom in Cologne and then launch it on Steam Early Access during next autumn.

As soon as Racecraft will be available on Steam, every Victory: The Age of Racing customer will receive it for free, as previously promised here.

There will be a Deluxe version of Racecraft: if you bought the Deluxe version (or the DLC) of Victory, you will receive the Deluxe version of Racecraft for free.

Stopping the development of Victory and moving our development team to Racecraft was not a simple decision for us. Please check out the articles about Victory to Racecraft transition on Racecraft’s dev blog: written by our CEO, they simply gives you an inside view of what happened and why we decided this, without filters:

Before the actual launch on Steam Early Access we’ll need to test the game on a short closed beta: you can leave your email or one-click subscribe with Facebook on Racecraft’s dev blog to be invited to that Closed Beta.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2015/07/16/racecraft-free-for-all-victory-players/feed/0First RaceCraft playable Tech Demo at Modena Play 2015!http://vaevictis.it/2015/04/07/first-racecraft-playable-tech-demo-at-modena-play-2015/
http://vaevictis.it/2015/04/07/first-racecraft-playable-tech-demo-at-modena-play-2015/#respondTue, 07 Apr 2015 14:58:55 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=2281We’ll show the first pre-alpha tech demo of Racecraft at Modena Play in Italy on the 11th and 12th of April: come visit us and try our first playable version of the game on a dedicated play seat created in collaboration with Playseat and Fanatec.

You can find us at Pad. C / Stand C16.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2015/04/07/first-racecraft-playable-tech-demo-at-modena-play-2015/feed/0Victory Dev Leaks 18: RaceCraft is cominghttp://vaevictis.it/2014/06/19/victory-dev-leaks-18-racecraft-is-coming/
http://vaevictis.it/2014/06/19/victory-dev-leaks-18-racecraft-is-coming/#respondThu, 19 Jun 2014 10:26:13 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=2229We are facing one of the major challenges of racing games: being able to create unlimited race tracks having both a proper functionality and a great visual impact.

Our R&D team is working on a procedural algorithm that randomly creates straight lines, chicanes, sharp turns, Esses, hairpins, etc. opening the way to structured weekly events based on always different tracks where players handle tires consumption, pit stops, weather conditions and limited car damages.

We called this new procedural track generation engine “RaceCraft” and we’ll release it as a free demo for Victory: The Age of Racing in the coming weeks.

Given an initial seed and custom parameters, RaceCraft creates race tracks designed for sim and mid-sim players, with dynamic placement of all the objects needed on the track (starting grid, pit lane, fences, gaps, aprons, curbs, buildings, billboards, etc…).

In the current version you’re already able to generate different seeds and then modify the tracks created on that seed by modifying various parameters.

We’re now finishing our work on our updated graphic engine (shaders, etc) and creating lots of more objects to be placed on the procedural tracks created by RaceCraft.

The final engine will support race track themes and more parameters to play with to create your ideal racetrack.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2014/06/19/victory-dev-leaks-18-racecraft-is-coming/feed/0Victory: The Age of Racing available today on Steam Early Accesshttp://vaevictis.it/2014/02/10/victory-early-access-release/
http://vaevictis.it/2014/02/10/victory-early-access-release/#respondMon, 10 Feb 2014 14:49:20 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=2214Victory is an unique racing game with unprecedented car handling and user generated cars inspired from the different eras of racing.

Victory proposes a thrilling racing experience through multiplayer events competition and get drivers involved in an addictive team career.

You can be a ruthless driver pushing your car over the limits, a talented designer by creating unique user generated cars and a high skilled technical director by enhancing your car’s performance and tackling advanced settings. Join the competition and get victorious by racing in Victory.

We are a small independent game studio, we didn’t design Victory based on Marketing research, we did it only following our passion and to create the racing game we have always dreamed about. Thanks to Steam Early Access and player’s support, we have now the opportunity to take online racing to the next level making the game that we want and players want.

Our ultimate goal is to create a sandbox racing game, where you can create your cars, tracks, championships, live events… giving players the freedom to be a racer, a technical director, a car designer, a team manager, a constructor. It’s up to the players how far we can go.

We advice you to read our game description and watch our videos on Steam and maybe also this nice game guide written by one beta tester.

The official release of the game on Steam Early Access it’s expected for:

18:00 GMT
13:00 EST
10:00 PST

Thank you for your interest in Victory, if you have any question feel free enter the game official group on Steam and ask for help on our forums.

About Vae Victis
Vae Victis is an independent game development studio based in Italy, the land of motor sports. Our Mission is to create original IPs throughout desktop and mobile platforms. Vae Victis was founded in the 2007: we’re small, but very focused team of 15 talented members, with a balanced mix of creativity, games passion and technology skills. vaevictis.it

About the Soundtrack of Victory: The Age of RacingThe original soundtrack for Victory has been composed by acclaimed composer and sound designer Andrea Doria. ready2rockmusic.com

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2014/02/10/victory-early-access-release/feed/0Victory: The Age of Racing has been Greenlit on Steam Greenlight!http://vaevictis.it/2013/12/05/victory-the-age-of-racing-has-been-greenlit-on-steam-greenlight/
http://vaevictis.it/2013/12/05/victory-the-age-of-racing-has-been-greenlit-on-steam-greenlight/#respondThu, 05 Dec 2013 08:04:34 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=2132

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2013/12/05/victory-the-age-of-racing-has-been-greenlit-on-steam-greenlight/feed/0Victory: Mini Racing is one of the Selected Projects at the Game Connection 2013http://vaevictis.it/2013/11/14/victory-mini-racing-game-connection/
http://vaevictis.it/2013/11/14/victory-mini-racing-game-connection/#respondThu, 14 Nov 2013 12:12:10 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=1656Victory: Mini Racing is one of the Selected Project Nominees at the Game Connection Europe 2013 in the Social, Casual & Online category.

The winner will be announced at the end of the Selected Project’s conference in Paris on December, 3rd. Some of the most important worldwide game publishers are part of the jury.

Victory: Mini Racing is a free to play cross-platform Racing Game for iOS, Android and browsers.

Our twelfth major service pack for victory, aka Victory SP 12, it’s our biggest and most anticipated content and feature service pack.

During the Beta stage of Victory we decided, six months ago, to take all the feedbacks from our beloved community and complete the development of our humble game with a final step that we now call “Beta 4”.

For us this has been the most difficult and intense development cycle since we started Vae Victis six years ago.

We took all the feedbacks, the suggestions and new ideas we gathered during the first three Beta stages of Victory, we placed them on a big whiteboard and we started thinking on what to change or introduce in Victory, without any boundaries.

We designed a new interface. We studied new ways to optimize the game, we changed the basics of our economy, we introduced new experiences, new kind of events, new possibilities for the players, we scripted a game tutorial.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2013/10/18/victory-beta-4-racing-team-careers-new-interface-new-class-physics-and-more/feed/0Vae Victis and Victory at Gamescom 2013http://vaevictis.it/2013/07/20/vae-victis-and-victory-at-gamescom-2013/
http://vaevictis.it/2013/07/20/vae-victis-and-victory-at-gamescom-2013/#respondSat, 20 Jul 2013 11:35:18 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=2008We will be present at the Gamescom 2013 in Cologne inside the business area, please contact us if you want to have a business meeting.
]]>http://vaevictis.it/2013/07/20/vae-victis-and-victory-at-gamescom-2013/feed/0ilvideogioco.com – Victory: The Age of Racing, prime impressionihttp://vaevictis.it/2013/03/13/ilvideogioco-com-victory-the-age-of-racing-prime-impressioni/
http://vaevictis.it/2013/03/13/ilvideogioco-com-victory-the-age-of-racing-prime-impressioni/#respondWed, 13 Mar 2013 20:45:03 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=1636A nice hands-on Victory by Antonio Patti and Edoardo Ullo on ilvideogioco.com:

After months of work and weeks of testing we’re finally ready to release one of the most anticipated updates for Victory: today the Service Pack 11 is available for everyone to download.

SP11 officially starts the Beta 3 phase in the development of Victory and includes lots of new features:

New Steering Wheel Support

We’ve tested and wrecked lots of steering wheels during the last months to be able to give you the absolute best steering wheel driving experience in Victory. Connect your wheel, enter the options panel, calibrate it and feel the difference on the road.

We support a vast range of USB steering wheels, including force feedback effects that will give you an unprecedented experience in Victory.

To balance the game, if you use a steering wheel to drive in Victory almost every driving assistance is automatically turned off. This will make both your experience more realistic and balance your efforts with other players that have chosen different input methods (keyboard, joypad, mouse).

The balancing of the different input methods it’s one of our priorities: we’d like to see keyboard, joypad, mouse and steering wheel racers to play together without any evident advantage for a particular input. We strive to achieve this together with our fantastic community feedback and support. Feel free to report your feedback and advices on the forum, as always, we’ll improve Victory together.

New Live Events: Hot Lap Party

“Hot Lap Party” is a new long lasting live event where you can join a multiplayer time attack mode.

Racers have to set their fastest lap before the end of the event: Check the event rankings in real time on the brand new HUD that also shows overtakes, sector times and more. Up to 100 players can join a single Hot Lap Party!

You can enter and exit a Hot Lap Party whenever you want: set a new lap time, race in another event, go back to it, close the game if you want and then come back and set a new time before the event finishes.

New Intelligent Driving Assistance

​We’ve invested over two years working on our Racing Artificial Intelligence (RAI). We’ll use it in our career mode included in a future service pack. But the core of RAI is now finished and we’ve used it in the last months to drive every possible car variants (millions!) in Victory to set reference times, adjust and modify our racing tracks and, above all, test the driving skills of our AI.

SP11 includes now an Intelligent Driving Assistance that helps you drive your particular and unique Rookie, Semi Pro or Pro car. Victory’s Racing Artificial Intelligence will recognize the track and brake for you when needed, according to the performance points, engine, tires and widgets on your car.

Also, it’s now possible to enable the visualization of the ideal racing line on the track: that line is the result of thousands of RAI attempts on that particular track.

The Driving Assistance is enabled by default for every racer: We encourage you to try it, it’s the best way to start driving in Victory.

You can disable (or re-enable) the Driving Assistance everytime you want in the game options.

This is a big step for us to finally enable every player to be competitive in Victory: With different levels of driving assistance, driving aids based on your preferred controller, unlimited car customization, realistic physics based on user’s choices and different car classes we finally want Victory to be the only racing game enjoyable by both casual and hard core online racers.

Candies

It’s now possible to save a screenshot of the game by pressing the PrintScreen key. A new screenshot will be saved in the “screenshots” folder inside the game main folder.

The HUD new sector time indicator introduced with Hot Lap Party it’s also available in the HotLap Challenge mode.

Nice article by Veni Vidi Vici on the release of the Beta 3 of Victory:

What sets it apart, however, is its in-depth car customisation. There are no set car models in the game – you have to build your own car entirely from scratch using a three block system that lets you select pre-built sectors for the front, middle and rear of the car. From here, you can then personalise your machine by adding paint jobs, adorning it with stickers and tweaking its performance attributes. Three car classes are available, Rookie, Semi Pro and Pro, which unlock as you level up, although you can purchase licenses that automatically level you up.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2013/03/06/teamvvv-com-victory-the-age-of-racing-beta-3-adds-steering-wheel-support/feed/0Victory is #1 Free to Play game on Amazon.comhttp://vaevictis.it/2012/12/14/victory-is-1-free-to-play-game-on-amazon-com/
http://vaevictis.it/2012/12/14/victory-is-1-free-to-play-game-on-amazon-com/#respondFri, 14 Dec 2012 11:48:06 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=1532

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2012/12/14/victory-is-1-free-to-play-game-on-amazon-com/feed/0Victory: The Age of Racing launches on Steam Greenlight after the release of Service Pack 10http://vaevictis.it/2012/10/22/victory-the-age-of-racing-launches-on-steam-greenlight-after-the-release-of-service-pack-10/
http://vaevictis.it/2012/10/22/victory-the-age-of-racing-launches-on-steam-greenlight-after-the-release-of-service-pack-10/#respondMon, 22 Oct 2012 10:12:13 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=1520Vae Victis Games released the tenth Service Pack for Victory: The Age of Racing, containing hundreds of bug fixes and completely new features. Also, Victory is now published on Valve’s Steam Greenlight to be evaluated for publication on the Steam platform.

Victory Service Pack 10 What’s New

Live Events: Super GP

Live Events are events created in real time by the central Victory Server and proposed to inactive players.

There’s different kind of Live events in development now, the first ones that is being released with SP10 are the Super GP events.

A Super GP is a single race created by the central server with random prizes for the participants.

Each Super GP race offers an Event Reward that will be rewarded to each player that will finish the event (the single race in this case) and a Winner Prize, awarded to the winner of the event.

New RC6 car physics

After months of work Vae Victis now releases the sixth major release for Victory’s car physics engine. This is the result of player’s feedbacks and the analysis of the milions of driven kilometers during Victory’s Beta.

Achievements Quests and new Achievements
A new “quest” system based on the completion of the first achievements in the game to promote the exploration of the basic features of Victory and act as a simple tutorial for the new players.

This SP also introduces 30 brand new Achievements, there’s now over 300 different achievements in the game.

LAN Support

New “LAN” screen in the lobby where players can create Local Area Network servers to play with fellow LAN friends and easily create LAN parties!

Much more!

For a complete list of the new features and bug fixes contained in SP10 please head to Victory official Announcements Forum:

Victory: The Age of Racing on Steam Greenlight

“Greenlight is an incredible opportunity for small independent studios like ours to be visible on the leading distribution channel for PC games on the World: Steam.”

said Luca Garattoni – Executive Producer at Vae Victis

“We want to use Steam Greenlight to show off our game to the Steam Community and receive valuable feedbacks. Player’s feedback it’s at the center of our development cycle since the beginning and we’ll continue this tradition by using the opportunity that Steam Greenlight gives to independent studios like us”

said Antonio Moro – Creative Director at Vae Victis

Victory: The Age of Racing has been officially published on Steam Greenlight today, please support the publication of Victory on Steam by submitting comments and vote up our game on:

Screenshots & More informations

Don’t esitate to contact us if any other information is needed. You can download a press pack for Victory: The Age of Racing, containing screenshots and general information, here: http://vaevictis.it/press

About the Game

Victory: The Age of Racing is a free to play online racing game with a realistic car physics and casual game play. Race in a world inspired by the open wheels racing scene, as you take your customized car around hairpin turns, swerve past your opponents, and accelerate towards the finish line.

About the Studio

Vae Victis is an independent game development studio based in Italy. Our core team consists of talented members from online games, simulation, web design, digital marketing, music and CGI. Different skills, same feeling for fun.

Vae Victis was founded in 2007. We are now focused on the development of a fully integrated racing game engine and social network platform to run our original IP in the free to play business model.

Now in its sixth edition, IVDC – Italian Videogames & Digital Contents Conference is the Italian event dedicated to videogames development and the new frontiers of digital culture. The event is organized by the Cultural Institute AIOMI and will take place inside the VIGAMUS, The Videogame Museum of Rome.

IVDC will take place during the opening of VIGAMUS, The Videogame Museum of Rome, a permanent exhibition space in the heart of the Capital dedicated to gaming and its history. During the two days of the conference, all the visitors will be granted a free tour of VIGAMUS.

Giovanni Antonioli Fantini, Vae Victis CEO, will speak to the IVDC visitors on Sunday, October 21st, at 17:00 at the EPSON Multimedia Conference Center.

Check out the complete panels program and guests list on the official website: ivdconf.com

The variety on offer is pretty amazing for a free-to-play game, and is also rather inventive and interesting compared to most other racers.

The racing mechanics are very good, with handling feeling wonderfully tight and responsive.

Victory: The Age of Racing is a very good, interesting and fun game. It provides fresh ideas to the racing genre, has a deep customisation system, and is a great racer with good controls and fun races. And the best part is that Vae Victus are running an open beta that you can join right now and start playing, which, if you’re a fan of racing games, I would recommend you do.

“Our Team had the chance to be in an exclusive presentation of Victory: the Age of Racing. Those who believe that racing games are all the same thing, will have to change their mind because Victory seems to be the first perfect hybrid between a cars game and a MMORPG game, since your car is your character, your creature, your unique alter ego thrown towards victory.”

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2012/08/15/vae-victis-gamescom-booth/feed/0Magazine / PC Gamer / Victory: The Age of Racinghttp://vaevictis.it/2012/08/05/magazine-pc-gamer-victory-the-age-of-racing/
http://vaevictis.it/2012/08/05/magazine-pc-gamer-victory-the-age-of-racing/#respondSun, 05 Aug 2012 19:36:14 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=1430Great two pages hands on Victory on the August 2012 issue of PC Gamer, the world authority on PC Games!

“Bringing serious simulation to the Free-to-play Racing.”

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2012/08/05/magazine-pc-gamer-victory-the-age-of-racing/feed/0Vae Victis and Victory at Gamescom 2012http://vaevictis.it/2012/08/03/vae-victis-and-victory-at-gamescom-2012/
Fri, 03 Aug 2012 17:23:01 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=1338Vae Victis, the Italian publisher based in Cesena, is creating in the studios based in Cesena (Italy) “Victory: The Age of Racing”, one of the best online Free to Play racing game available on the market today, and it will show it to the attendances during the gamescom 2012, the largest fair in the games industry which will be held in Cologne (Germany) from 15th to 17th August 2012.

Vae Victis will be present with a booth at Hall 8.1 – D020, and will allow all visitors to race online and engage eachothers in exciting wheel-to-wheel duels.

“We hope to inspire the 300,000 visitors present at gamescom 2012 with our Victory” commented Luca Garattoni, Executive Producer and Game Designer Vae Victis. “The German and international public has always been a fan of racing games, and we are confident that they will find Victory: The Age of Racing a title deeply structured, well made and, above all, fun to play.”

Victory: The Age of Racing is currently in Open Beta phase, but already fully functional in all its aspects, including the payment system for micro transactions.

Victory: The Age of Racing is a game totally free to play, and can be played entirely for free. However, it is possible to buy items online to further improve and customize their cars to the maximum level.

About Vae Victis
Vae Victis, a MMO development studio based in Cesena, brings the Italian developers to the world stage through the completion of the first racing MMO developed entirely in Italy. The studio is located in the Italian Motor Valley, next to Ferrari, Lamborghini and Ducati factories. The studio has already worked with one of the most important legends of motorsport and is very excited to present to the world “Victory: The Age of Racing”.

Business Dev. Contacts

]]>Victory Beta 2 has started!http://vaevictis.it/2012/06/11/victory-beta-2-has-started/
http://vaevictis.it/2012/06/11/victory-beta-2-has-started/#respondMon, 11 Jun 2012 14:32:40 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=1315Today, Vae Victis released Beta 2 – Patch 9. This is a major update and takes the first steps of offering gamers an intense racing experience with the thrill of being in the driving seat of a formula racing-machine.

“We have worked hard on this launch to make sure that we offer gamers something exciting that they can enjoy at any time, dropping in an out of game play, with what free time gamers have in their busy schedule.”

said Luca Garattoni- Executive Producer at Vae Victis.

“We want to make sure their experience is exciting and easy to enjoy. We have focused our changes that reflect this in game, with such features as our car physics and Research & Development labs. When drivers purchase new items such as engines and tires, all items will directly affect their car performances. A new Car Statistics table will show you how the different PP allocation, for engines and tires affects your car performance. ”

Beta 2 – Patch 9 includes:

Brand new Game Launcher with integrated HTML browser that will show players the latest news and useful links to the community and official website.

Updated Main Screen

The Main screen has been updated to better host new features and future game modes.

New Research & Development Screen
You can now change the performance of your car in the new Research & Development screen, where you can freely allocate Performance Points (PPs) to the different car attributes. Each of your cars will unlock 3 PPs per player level. You can buy new Engines and Tires that will directly affect your car performances. A new Car Statistics table will show you how the different PP allocation, engines and tires affects your car performance.

Wonder Points
With the new car development system all the items in the market will give you WPs (Wonder Points). The more WPs you have, the more Rx (Race Experience) you get after each race: so you need to have high Wonder on your car if you want to level faster. Also, new events and other new features will require your car to have a certain amount of Wonder to be eligible.

Updated Marketplace

The Market has been updated with bran new filter icons to better navigate the different item categories. Also, a new cyan colour icon will highlight all the newly unlocked items so you always know what new stuff is in the market for you since you last levelled up.

Race Points
Your driver accumulates RP by racing in multiplayer races and events. After each race you will now get Race Points, Race Experience and Gears Credits. We will now use Race Points instead of Race Experience on rankings and events to rank the different drivers. Race Points are not influenced by Premium Accounts bonuses like Race Experience: we don’t want premium users to have a direct advantage to other non paying users.

Other Minor Features and Changes

• We now calculate the Race Experience given after each race based on the duration (in laps) of that race

• Default Laps when creating a new Race Server are now 3 instead of 2

• World Record Achievements are now unlocked only in the Hot Lap mode

• Some old Achievements bugs has been fixed

Premium Accounts and Victis Gold introduction
During Beta 2 it’s now possible to buy Premium Account days that will enable:

• +50% Rx Bonus after each race

• +30% Gears Credits Bonus after each race

• 20% discount on all Market prices

It’s now also possible to buy Victis Gold and special Game Packs on the official website.
Please note that Premium Accounts and Victis Gold essentially permits you to save time, but never gives you a direct advantage towards non paying users: Victory is not a Pay to Win game and it will never be.

Videos

Here’s an ingame video showing the car creation and more in the latest Patch 9

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2012/06/11/victory-beta-2-has-started/feed/0Patch 8.6: Brand new Netcode, Web Dashboard and Registry Home!http://vaevictis.it/2012/04/10/patch-8-6-brand-new-netcode-web-dashboard-and-registry-home/
http://vaevictis.it/2012/04/10/patch-8-6-brand-new-netcode-web-dashboard-and-registry-home/#respondTue, 10 Apr 2012 10:15:06 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=1294Vae Victis is the developer, creator and self publisher of “Victory: The Age of Racing“, one of the best Free 2 Play online racing games available on the market. As part of their ongoing commitment to the steady growth in features and game improvements, Vae Victis today released patch 8.6.

This latest patch has come about in part from all the community feedback, you too can join in and contribute in helping to make this game one of the best MMO racing experiences next to driving in a real F1 car – scaring yourself on the tightest of bends with competitors all around you.

This game offers petrol heads pure adrenalin in play. If you want to experience all this and more you can register for the freshly launched beta, interact on our forums, read the latest news about Victory and more.

Patch 8.6 Features updates:

Brand New Netcode

This patch delivers what we’re working on since the beginning of Beta 1: a new and improved Netcode that will give you a way better multiplayer online racing experience.

Finally, car jitter is gone for normal fps and latency players and the new collision system now handles better car wrecks and contacts: launch Victory now and test it by yourself online!

New Website Dashboard

Now, when you login at victorythegame.com you will be redirected at the brand new Dashboard: here you will be able to check out in real time your performance analysis, winnings and Rx rankings, your stats, latest news and more!

New Registry Home

The Racing Authority Registry now has a brand new home that shows you in real time the top drivers and Rx rankings other than the top voted cars in the game.

About Victory: The Age of Racing

Race in a world inspired by the open wheels racing scene, as you take your customized car around hairpin turns, swerve past your opponents, and accelerate towards the finish line.

User Generated Cars

Victory car creation system starts with an innovative blocks system where the players choose from different car parts to create an unique car model. The Painting System then gives the players an unprecedented level of freedom in choosing colors, apply decals and colorable shapes.

Realistic Car Physics

An easy to use realistic physics means an unprecedented car handling in a game for everyone that is both easy to learn and hard to master.

Multiple Control Methods

You can choose between gamepad, keyboard or the mouse as the primary control method. This gives the game a large compatibility and doesn’t force you to always have the gamepad with you, we’ve worked hard to create the best keyboard controls available on the market.

Fun and easy Multiplayer

Victory is based on quick competitions where players gain experience points and collect different car items to increase their car’s attributes and reach the top of the leaderboard.

Car Attributes Development

Each car in Victory is described by six different attributes: Weight, Aerodynamics, Traction, Grip, Brakes and Power. Like in a role playing game, you have to spend performance points, gained by buying accessories, in those six different attributes to finally reach the perfect attributes combination for your driving style and racing conditions.

If you love racing, you love Victory

Victory is a game for the casual racers that want more: a realistic car physics and a real racing experience with real time collisions, maintaining easy to learn game controls.

Victory is also a game for the hard core racers that don’t have time for a full professional 3 hours race and want to race in a more casual and funny gameplay.

Vae Victis would like to say a big Thank you! to all of our beta testers, you have helped a lot our team during this beta months and we’ll always be grateful, expect some nice rewards before the release of the Release Candidate, we know who you are guys, thanks.

About Vae Victis – Different skills, same feeling for fun.
Vae Victis is an independent game development studio based in Italy. Our core team consists of talented members from online games, simulation, web design, digital marketing, music and CGI. Vae Victis was founded in 2007. We are now focused on the development and publishing of a fully integrated racing game engine and social network platform to run our original IP in the free to play business model. http://vaevictis.it

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2012/03/01/new-victory-trailer-for-the-gdc-2012/feed/0Cinemablend.com / Victory: Age Of Racing Being Published By Vae Victishttp://vaevictis.it/2012/02/14/cinemablend-com-victory-age-of-racing-being-published-by-vae-victis/
http://vaevictis.it/2012/02/14/cinemablend-com-victory-age-of-racing-being-published-by-vae-victis/#respondTue, 14 Feb 2012 10:34:48 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=1273Nice feature article on Cinemablend.com about the recent change of publisher and beta restart for Victory: The Age of Racing.

We don’t have many high-quality free-to-play racing titles out there but the ones we do get are usually addictive little buggers. Hoping to join the ranks of established F2P racing titles such as Heat Online and The Need For Speed Online is Vae Victis’ self-published title, Victory: The Age of Racing.

Originally, Victory was being funded and published by GamersFirst, but after many, many, many years of waiting the game never really seem to come to fruition on G1’s free-to-play portal, only going as far as getting a very secluded closed-beta test.

Vae Victis’ Victory is currently out of the closed-beta stage of development and the developers are patching and adding in content for the game on a regular basis.

For those of you wondering what you get in Victory I’ll run it down for you like this: Victory is a free-to-play title that offers customizable racing machines that resemble many old-school and prototype racers. The vehicles sport realistic-based physics and damage, as well as the ability to level-up and make advancements in the game, all while competing against other gamers in online races.

The racing looks intense and the customization runs deep. The gameplay seems very similar to Ubisoft’s TrackMania. You can sign-up to start playing the game or simply learn more by paying a visit to the Official Victory: The Age of Racing Website.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2012/02/14/cinemablend-com-victory-age-of-racing-being-published-by-vae-victis/feed/0Massively.com / Victory: The Age of Racing changes publishers, burns rubber into betahttp://vaevictis.it/2012/02/14/massively-com-victory-the-age-of-racing-changes-publishers-burns-rubber-into-beta/
http://vaevictis.it/2012/02/14/massively-com-victory-the-age-of-racing-changes-publishers-burns-rubber-into-beta/#respondTue, 14 Feb 2012 10:32:01 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=1270Nice feature article on Massively.com about the recent change of publisher and beta restart for Victory: The Age of Racing.

It’s been quite some time since we last heard from Vae Victis regarding its F2P racing MMO, Victory: The Age of Racing. The game was originally slated to be a 1960s Formula One racing title, but over time it has evolved to take place in a distant, post-apocalyptic future when humanity has been reduced to small pockets of survivors. Maybe said survivors held a council meeting to decide what they should be doing with their time: repopulating the earth, planting sustainable crops, scavenging for food… the choices are endless. But apparently one thing was more important than all that: racing.

Victory was originally picked up to be published by GamersFirst, but after three years of deliberation, Vae Victis decided to self-publish the title “to best fulfill each particular need it will have and finally create the best possible product for our beloved players.” The official post goes on to announce the initiation of Victory Beta 1, which is “a new version of the game that offers dozens of new features and fixes,” such as the addition of a matchmaking system, achievements, new game modes, the Pro class for experienced players, and much more. For the full details, head on over to Vae Victis’ blog, and then click on over to the game’s official site to get behind the wheel.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2012/02/14/massively-com-victory-the-age-of-racing-changes-publishers-burns-rubber-into-beta/feed/0Everyeye.it / Victory: the Age of Racing – Hands onhttp://vaevictis.it/2012/02/14/everyeye-it-victory-the-age-of-racing-hands-on/
http://vaevictis.it/2012/02/14/everyeye-it-victory-the-age-of-racing-hands-on/#respondTue, 14 Feb 2012 10:20:31 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=1264Long and in depth hands-on of Victory on Everyeye.it, one of the major italian entertainment website.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2012/02/14/everyeye-it-victory-the-age-of-racing-hands-on/feed/0Victory: The Age of Racing is now self published by Vae Victishttp://vaevictis.it/2012/02/03/victory-the-age-of-racing-is-now-self-published-by-vae-victis/
http://vaevictis.it/2012/02/03/victory-the-age-of-racing-is-now-self-published-by-vae-victis/#commentsFri, 03 Feb 2012 18:08:03 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=1220Vae Victis is the developer and creator of Victory: The Age of Racing. We’re working on it since 2007 and we strongly believe that Victory will be one of the best F2P online racing game available on the market.

We worked hard since day one and found a great publisher for our beloved game: GamersFirst.

After three years we decided, together with GamersFirst, to self publish our game to best fulfill each particular need it will have and finally create the best possible product for our beloved players.

Expect great things to come: As a publisher we’ll focus only on Victory and this will certainly give Victory the boost and attention it needs to succeed in the Free to Play online market.

After the GamersFirst’s Victory Closed Beta, we are now so proud to start this new phase of the Victory development: Victory Beta 1, with a new version of the game that offers dozens of new features and fixes:

The Pro Class is here!

The Pro class is now available for every level 41+ player, hundreds of new items & car blocks will be included in the game so you can now create your completely unique Pro Class Car. A new item category is now available for the Pro Class: Wings.

Race Matchmaking

Just push the Race! button in the Main Screen and the game will put you in the best server available or either create a new server for you.

Achievements!

Players can now unlock Achievements rewarding the player with Gears Credits (GC), Race Experience (Rx), items and achievement titles that can be displayed on top of player’s nickname in game.

New Game Mode: Handicap Mode

In the Handicap mode races who wins a race receives a handicap for the next race.

If another race is won by the same player, that driver will receive another handicap, up to 5 handicaps can be piled up. If a player wins a race when one or more handicaps are assigned to him, he will receive additional experience and currency as a prize.

Each race won gives you a handicap, each race not won will lose you one. A handicap slows your car, the more handicaps you receive the slower your car will be.

Grid Cameras

We’ve added super cool random cameras during the grid time, so you can check out yours and others car designs.

Dedicated Servers

Patch 8 now fully supports dedicated servers. We’ll add them online progressively during the next days.

6 drivers cap

Quick races and Handicap races are now open to up to 6 drivers!

Other Changes and Improvements

• New Consumables: added +3 +4 +5 new buffs and packs with 50 consumables.
• New GUI Sounds: now GUI has a complete set of sounds.
• New Tracks Environment sounds.
• The race server now has a flag icon close to his name.
• During the races is now available the BUY ALL widgets option.
• The TAB key now opens/closes the Race Drivers List during a race.
• MARKET: removed the BROWSE tab and renamed as ITEMS the List one.
• Added the ‘Favorite Items’ filter.
• Fixed a bug that was causing crashes due of messages/invites not removed.
• Fixed a bug that was causing a jump start.
• The ENTER key in the Race Password Window now works properly.
• Arrow keys are now always dedicated to throttle/brake/steer commands and can’t be assigned, you still can customize other keys as throttle/brake/steer if you want.
• Dozens of minor bugs and kinks solved in this patch.

Economy, Cars and Drivers Reset

Due to the great amount of economy and feature changes included with this patch, all the drivers, cars and prices will be resetted with the release of Patch 8 and the start of Victory Beta 1. We’ve worked a lot on the back end of the game for this new release and we’re now able to record and better understand the economy of the game, it’s now time to start from scratch to finalize the game economy before the Beta Version of Victory: Beta 2.

We would like to say a big Thank you! to all of our beta testers, you have helped a lot our team during this beta months and we’ll always be grateful, expect some nice rewards before the release of the Release Candidate, we know who you are guys, thanks.

GamersFirst official statement

After several years of publishing support for Victory: The Age of Racing, GamersFirst and the developer Vae Victis have mutually agreed to return the publishing rights of the game back to Vae Victis. We feel that Victory is a wonderful game with a bright future and Vae Victis, as the developer, will do the best possible job of operating it. Due to the success of APB Reloaded and Fallen Earth, we see a development future that will require more resources that projected. As such, GamersFirst has elected to refocus its energies on these two wholly-owned properties and revert the publishing of Victory: Age of Racing back to Vae Victis.

Interested fans should head over to victorythegame.com to follow the game’s continued progress and register to continue playing in the closed beta. The official GamersFirst forums will remain open and active for the next seven days in order to facilitate the transition to www.victorythegame.com . This transition is effective today; any G1 Credits used in Victory will be returned to the account that spent them within the next 30 days. The official GamersFirst forums will remain active for the next seven days to help direct traffic towards the game’s new home victorythegame.com/forum.

Thank you for playing Victory with us. We wish the absolute best to the team at Vae Victis and look forward to continuing to play Victory under their esteemed ownership!

About Vae Victis

Vae Victis is an independent game development studio based in Italy. Our core team consists of talented members from online games, simulation, web design, digital marketing, music and CGI.

Different skills, same feeling for fun.

Vae Victis was founded in 2007. We are now focused on the development and publishing of a fully integrated racing game engine and social network platform to run our original IP in the free to play business model. http://vaevictis.it

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2012/02/03/victory-the-age-of-racing-is-now-self-published-by-vae-victis/feed/2Victory on Beta Machine / The Games Machinehttp://vaevictis.it/2011/12/27/magazine-tgm-victory-the-age-of-racing-3/
http://vaevictis.it/2011/12/27/magazine-tgm-victory-the-age-of-racing-3/#respondTue, 27 Dec 2011 14:29:34 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=1192The Games Machine, the major videogame magazine in Italy, dedicates its Beta section, “Beta Machine”, to Victory: The Age of Racing in its January 2012 issue.

We’re now working hard at Vae Victis to expand the single player experience in Victory. Our first focus has been to develop the best possible Racing Artificial Intelligence (RAI) around.

Our brand new RAI will be implemented in one of the next patches inside a new game mode called Duel Challenge.
In Duel Challenge the players will race versus different RAI drivers, divided in different difficulty levels.

What you see in the video above is a sneak preview of one of our programmers driving versus a RAI driver with medium difficulty. Our RAI reacts to the human driver handling and strikes back rising the rage level if hit or stopped.

Our RAI will be used in a brand new single player career mode that will be released for Victory in the coming months.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2011/12/23/victory-dev-leaks-10-racing-ai-preview/feed/0Victory Dev Leaks 09: Pro Classhttp://vaevictis.it/2011/11/03/victory-dev-leaks-09-pro-class/
http://vaevictis.it/2011/11/03/victory-dev-leaks-09-pro-class/#respondThu, 03 Nov 2011 17:17:49 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=1142This is a preview of the upcoming Road Race Pro Class car blocks and accessories. The Pro Class will be introduced during the Closed Beta of Victory: The Age of Racing together with the CB Patch 7.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2011/11/03/victory-dev-leaks-09-pro-class/feed/0MMOGames.com / Victory: The Age of Racinghttp://vaevictis.it/2011/10/28/mmogames-com-victory-the-age-of-racing/
http://vaevictis.it/2011/10/28/mmogames-com-victory-the-age-of-racing/#respondFri, 28 Oct 2011 07:53:30 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=1130“A very unique online racing game set in a Post-Apocalyptic world. Players can build and customize their own car, changing everything down to the finest little details. Where Victory stands out is in its advanced driving physics and the way it handles driving in an online environment. A very cool racing game, and for any formula one fan you will feel right at home with the styles of the cars.”

Victory: The Age of Racing is a free to play MMO Racing game currently being developed by VaeVictis and published by GamersFirst. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic future where following the collapse of civilization in 2012 the world only has one passion to unite them; racing. Drivers will build a car from the ground up and race with competitors from all over the globe.

In a racing game such as this, an expansive selection of customizations for a car is crucial. Victory offers a build mode that allows a player to go wild, within reason of course. A car is divided up into blocks, individual sections which the player may customize and change. The selections made are preset but there is a huge variety on offer, and once player’s progress throughout the game more unique cars will begin to appear. Players may purchase parts by competing in races to level up and to win cash for use in the Market. Besides buying parts for your car, each part bought may give the driver skill points; which can be spent on improving the cars performance.

There are a wide variety of tracks available currently in Victory, and the game promotes a very formula 1 style vibe. The driving within the game is exhilarating; with the advanced car physics engine in the game you really feel every bump and curve in the road. The physics makes driving more realistic as opposed to many arcade style racers, although it’s not as involved as a simulator.

Graphically speaking Victory is quite nice to look at, while it isn’t quite next-gen the cars do look superb. Every small detail of the vehicle has been taken care of, right down to the gear stick. Online racing games have become quite popular, but there has always been one major problem; driving with lag. A lot of games are ruined by the fact that lag cause delays in your turning and control of the car; making it basically impossible to drive. Victory handles lag rather well, for those not situated near the servers you will find that the game plays relatively smoothly still; other plays may “skip” though on your screen.

Racing fans will be pleased with Victory and with the content we have seen so far it looks like Victory really is shaping up to be a great MMO Racing game. The game is currently in beta, and we will definitely be keeping an eye on this title to see what the future brings. What are you waiting for? Pick up your spanner, start building a car and get it on the track today!

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2011/10/28/mmogames-com-victory-the-age-of-racing/feed/0MMOSite.com / Victory The Age of Racing Hands-On Previewhttp://vaevictis.it/2011/09/08/victory-the-age-of-racing-hands-on-preview-mmosite-com/
http://vaevictis.it/2011/09/08/victory-the-age-of-racing-hands-on-preview-mmosite-com/#respondThu, 08 Sep 2011 13:49:05 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=1112One of the first hands-on preview of the closed beta of Victory.

“Racing fans will be pleased with Victory: The Age of Racing and with some work it could become a relatively successful title. With formula 1 style flair, an interesting setting and some intense driving physics; this is definitely a game worth checking out.”

VaeVictis is a name many probably have never heard of before, but this studio is the developer behind Victory: The Age of Racing. Set in a post-apocalyptic future where mankind has crumbled, as the year 2012 arrived everything fell apart. Humans were reduced to tribes, fighting to gain valuable resources. As time passed on humanity was able to rebuild itself, and the world found unification in one thing; driving. Currently in beta, players are able to check out a few features on offer.

Set out across the globe and race against drivers from all over the world with Victory’s Advanced Driving Physics, every bump and curve in the road is felt as you put your foot to the floor. The driving feels great, it strives to provide a more casual simulation experience; so arcade racer fans look elsewhere. For an MMO Racing game it is surprising to see that lag has little to no effect on a players racing, while other players may ‘skip’ on the screen a players driving won’t feel like sliding across a map. If you have played All Points Bulletin or Need For Speed Worlds then you know what I am talking about in regards to lag making driving impossible.
The post-apocalyptic twist on the game is more aesthetic than anything else, the tracks you race on and the background visuals are all following the same theme; but that’s it. The game does offer however quite an extensive customization system for cars, breaking them down into blocked sections. Everything cosmetically can be changed to an array of various options; cars are broken down into individual parts so players may create something truly unique to them. There is a vast amount of selections to be made and many include additional variations for that selection; there are heaps to play with.

As players make cosmetical changes, certain parts offer certain amounts of power points. With power points you are able to increase the performance of your car, rather than forcing you to pay for these changes separately. Additionally before each race, players may tweak their cars handling by setting brake bias, suspension stiffness and things of that nature. Utilizing this system players are able to tweak the car to their exact driving style, whether you are about control or drifting; you can do it all.
The setting of the tracks is rather well done, and they are definitely enjoyable. The games graphics are 50/50 at the moment as the background visuals look a little outdated, but the cars look superb. Nothing is more painful to look at then when developers work on separate texture qualities, don’t create model cars and call them Lego. Overall the graphics aren’t bad and the game look good enough in the spots where you should be looking.

For those more serious racers compete against the world to become the top driver. Find races quickly with the matchmaking system or hold a private race with your friends. If you need to warm up or test out a new part, the game allows you to jump into a quick “Hot Lap” on the track of your choice. Fine tune lap times and learn new tracks without ruining your online track record.
Racing fans will be pleased with Victory: The Age of Racing and with some work it could become a relatively successful title. With formula 1 style flair, an interesting setting and some intense driving physics; this is definitely a game worth checking out. Whether the game will prove to be a quality racer is still in the air, hopefully we will see some great things in the future.

This is just a preview of the upcoming Road Race Pro Class, the blocks are not final and some of them will not be released, but you can get a glimpse of what is coming.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2011/09/02/victory-dev-leaks-08-pro-class-blocks-preview/feed/0Awesome feedback from Victory Closed Betahttp://vaevictis.it/2011/07/28/awesome-feedback-from-victory-closed-beta/
http://vaevictis.it/2011/07/28/awesome-feedback-from-victory-closed-beta/#commentsThu, 28 Jul 2011 16:29:42 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=1083After three days of closed beta we’re still hard working on all the new minor bugs we discovered, we’ll release a new patch on next monday and today we’ve completely revamped our production servers.

We’re crawling our beta forums for bugs and feedbacks, our beta testers are the best around, we love them. Here’s some nice feedback about the game.

“I have nothing but praise for the team working on this game, it took you guys awhile but you did it right. This is by far the best racing game I have played.”Numot

“I have to be honest personally I have had a lot of fun already, and I think this is one of the more enjoyable closed beta experiences that I have ever had. I love the handling characteristics and the racing between equally skilled drivers has been simply amazing. It actually feels at least somewhat like a simulation racing experience and that is exactly what I had hoped for.”MadCowRacin

“Driving/handling feels solid enough. Not to arcade, and not hardcore simulator. Right between the two.
It’s reward skillfull driving, but not hard to control.”MoliskScout

“I think that’s easy to learn so new people can drive “right out of the box”, but it’s hard to master and really rewards driving skills and clean racing lines.”M3HONSHO

“I really think that the way the car handles is the best feature of this game. I mean there is a deep driving model that makes you feel the car, the way it turns with the amount of grip you have on it lap by lap.

By far this really is one of the best experience for me, better than any codemasters title since TOCA Race Driver 2, that was a great one, better than NFS Shift and appealing quite the same than Test Drive Unlimited.

Obviously this is not a “professional” racing simulator like rFactor, GTR 2 or iRacing, but I think this is a good point for Victory, since many PC users are searching for a good “online racing GAME” by ages and this seems exactly that.”Mascalzone – MMORPGItalia.it

“This is the best racing game I ever played, it’s balanced I and never get bored. And yeah, for me the creation and the handling, are the best features of the game!”Kramerz

“All I have during summer is my keyboard, but this game is making me not worry too much – I can say honestly that the handling with keyboard is the best I have seen in any racing game. Keep up the good work!”bduddy55555

“Car handling, in itself, feels great. I feel as though I can tell how much turn at whatever speed will make the car start to slide.
The simplified setup sliders are also great; everything you really need is there, without requiring much knowledge about what effects the car how.”XtremeWays

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2011/07/28/awesome-feedback-from-victory-closed-beta/feed/1The Closed Beta is here!http://vaevictis.it/2011/07/27/the-closed-beta-is-here/
http://vaevictis.it/2011/07/27/the-closed-beta-is-here/#respondWed, 27 Jul 2011 12:03:22 +0000http://vaevictis.it/?p=1077Victory: The Age of Racing just started its closed beta phase. We’re super excited now that we’re watching hundreds players driving on our tracks. Gamersfirst started yesterday to invite the first core players from the official forums, we’re now experiencing some lag problems as the game actually resides on just one login server in America and right now drivers from all around the world are racing together: very cool, but a bit laggy.
]]>http://vaevictis.it/2011/07/27/the-closed-beta-is-here/feed/0Vae Victis at the GDC San Francisco 2011http://vaevictis.it/2011/03/17/vae-victis-at-the-gdc-san-francisco-2011/
http://vaevictis.it/2011/03/17/vae-victis-at-the-gdc-san-francisco-2011/#respondThu, 17 Mar 2011 10:27:51 +0000http://blog.vaevictis.it/?p=1005The GDC went super good for Victory as we showed the latest beta release candidate to all the press thanks to the support and the press meetings gathered from our great publisher Gamersfirst.
]]>http://vaevictis.it/2011/03/17/vae-victis-at-the-gdc-san-francisco-2011/feed/0Victory 0.8 Beta RC3 Screenshotshttp://vaevictis.it/2011/03/11/victory-0-8-beta-rc3-screenshots/
http://vaevictis.it/2011/03/11/victory-0-8-beta-rc3-screenshots/#commentsFri, 11 Mar 2011 11:42:16 +0000http://blog.vaevictis.it/?p=776The Closed Beta of Victory is approaching at last! We’re working hard with GamersFirst QA department to solve the last bugs, we’ve just released our RC3 that solves all the game’s major bugs and the next RC4 will probably be the Closed Beta build we’re all waiting for.

Check out the screenshots from the RC3 after the break.
]]>

http://vaevictis.it/2011/03/11/victory-0-8-beta-rc3-screenshots/feed/1OnRPG.com / First Look At Victory: Age Of Racinghttp://vaevictis.it/2011/03/11/onrpg-com-first-look-at-victory-age-of-racing/
http://vaevictis.it/2011/03/11/onrpg-com-first-look-at-victory-age-of-racing/#respondFri, 11 Mar 2011 10:58:24 +0000http://blog.vaevictis.it/?p=771Nice preview article on OnRPG.com after our meeting at the GDC 2011 in San Francisco:

The OnRPG team had the chance to get an early glimpse at GamersFirst’s Victory: Age of Racing at GDC and we have to say that we were happily surprised by this upcoming Free to Play Racing MMO.

The competitive nature of the game is sure to appeal to racing enthusiast around the world and the unique three tier (Rookie, Semi Pro, Pro) system that increases the reality of the driving physics as you go up the ranks will make sure the game is easy to learn while still being just challenging enough to master!

Due to some brilliant coding the client is very light (weighing in at around 500 megabytes compressed, and 1 Gigabyte installed) and the system specs are nice and low for such a graphically strong game. As the game engine uses shaders exclusively it isn’t slowed down by lots of textures on the cars and you can really tell.

And if customizing your ride is your thing, this game has your back as well. Where other games will let you use 10 or sometimes even 20 layers to create logos, decals and other designs Victory has opted for a nice round number of layers they allow: infinite. (Yes, infinite)

We’re working closely with GamersFirst on getting some of the OnRPG crew behind the wheel of the game for a more extensive test so check back here in a little while if you’re interested in learning more about Victory!

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2010/11/11/goodgame-it-vtaor-quando-lorgoglio-italiano-entra-in-pista/feed/0Mmorpgitalia.it / Victory The Age of Racing: Il Futuro delle Corse Onlinehttp://vaevictis.it/2010/10/04/mmorpgitalia-it-victory-the-age-of-racing-il-futuro-delle-corse-online/
http://vaevictis.it/2010/10/04/mmorpgitalia-it-victory-the-age-of-racing-il-futuro-delle-corse-online/#respondMon, 04 Oct 2010 15:43:26 +0000http://blog.vaevictis.it/?p=749Another great article about Victory has been published on Mmorpgitalia.it

Here’s what we remember of the last GDC Europe & GamesCom 2010 in Cologne.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2010/09/02/fast-forward-gamescom-2010/feed/1Magazine / TGM / Victory: The Age of Racinghttp://vaevictis.it/2010/08/02/magazine-tgm-victory-the-age-of-racing-2/
http://vaevictis.it/2010/08/02/magazine-tgm-victory-the-age-of-racing-2/#respondMon, 02 Aug 2010 14:09:29 +0000http://blog.vaevictis.it/?p=643The Games Machine, the major videogame magazine in Italy, writes about Victory in the August, 2010 issue.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2010/08/02/magazine-tgm-victory-the-age-of-racing-2/feed/0Onlinewelten.com / Beta-Termine für das Online-Rennspielhttp://vaevictis.it/2010/07/09/onlinewelten-com-beta-termine-fur-das-online-rennspiel/
http://vaevictis.it/2010/07/09/onlinewelten-com-beta-termine-fur-das-online-rennspiel/#respondFri, 09 Jul 2010 15:32:42 +0000http://blog.vaevictis.it/?p=754An update on the state of development of Victory on the german videogame website Onlinewelten.com

Racing fans and hardcore gamers looking for an intense online racing title have been waiting for quite some time for Vae Victis’ Victory: The Age of Racing

to come around and about in the media spotlight. Well, the time has come and the age of racing is upon us as GamersFirst and Vae Victis’ have let loose the official debut trailer for Victory.

The new trailer is actually quite cool because it’s not a teaser trailer full of glimpses, quick-shots or stills of pre-rendered scenes. Oh no, instead the debut trailer for Victory is a complete look at the in-game play including an overview of how the car customization features will work.

Players can detail their ride from tires to the cockpit with a range of parts, decals , colors and mods. You can check out the free-to-play MMO in action below or you can visit the Official Website to learn more about the game.

Victory can most easily be described as a F2P persistent version of Forza Motorsport.

Set in a future where car enthusiasts have retaken an interest in the F1 cars of old, the game features an impressive array of options for players to design their own cars. You pick the parts, paint and decal it the way you like, and add in bonus add-ons to improve performance. It’s not quite as in-depth as something like Gran Turismo when it comes to tweaking, but there’s enough depth to satisfy the hardcore without alienating the casual, and that’s obviously the goal of the developer.

The game also sports three different racing modes, which amount to basically easy, medium, and hard. The former has cars handling more like they would in Mario Kart, while medium notches up the difficulty to something like Project Gotham Racing, and hard turns it up to a full-racing sim like Forza or the Gran Turismo series. The visuals on the cars are crisp and fully-animated; even the springs move when players find themselves in rough terrain. However the tracks and bells and whistles of the UI leave something to be desired visually. One hopes they’ll improve the looks of the tracks, as for now it seems like the cars don’t belong on the road or vice versa. Still with an in-depth car customization system that has players gaining experience to perfect their driving abilities as well, Victory looks like it could be a casual racer’s cup of tea especially if they don’t go in for the cartoon kart racer games already on the market.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2010/06/21/mmorpgitalia-it-e3-awards-2010-victory-wins-the-best-f2p-award/feed/0Vae Victis at the E3 Expo 2010!http://vaevictis.it/2010/05/31/vae-victis-at-the-e3-expo-2010/
http://vaevictis.it/2010/05/31/vae-victis-at-the-e3-expo-2010/#respondMon, 31 May 2010 10:18:16 +0000http://blog.vaevictis.it/?p=547Vae Victis will be at the Los Angeles E3 Expo on June 15-17th 2010 at the Gamers First’s booth: South Hall / Booth 2803 / Gamers First

Vae Victis will present to the press the first playable pre-beta version of its first major production: Victory: The Age of Racing. We gladly invite you to visit our booth and test our beloved game.

For any information and to reserve an appointment
please contact the Gamers First PR team:PR@GamersFirst.com

About Victory: The Age of Racing

Victory: The Age of Racing is a free to play Massive Multiplayer Online Racing Game published by Gamersfirst.com and developed by VaeVictis.

Race in a post-apocalyptic world inspired by the legendary formula racing scene, as you take your car around hairpin turns, swerve past your opponents, and accelerate towards the finish line feeling the thrill of driving over 200mph.

With an easy to learn and hard to master driving experience, Victory uniquely blends a realistic and detailed car physics simulation with the pure fun of driving.

Victory is a really unique and innovative racing game with user generated cars with a never before seen car creation and development system, completely different race tracks around the world and engaging multiplayer quick competitions.

Game Features

The World of Victory
An unique and creative post-apocalyptic world inspired by the legendary formula racing scene with an art direction unlike anything else on the market.

Unprecedented Driving Experience
An easy to use and hard to master driving experience where you can control your car with the keyboard, the mouse or a compatible controller, always maintaining the same unprecedented car handling.

Car Classes
With three different car classes for beginners, advanced and simulation users, Victory offers you a complete driving experience.

Fun and Easy Multiplayer
Victory is based on quick competitions and events where you can compete and have fun without spending hours on boring long-lasting races.

User Generated Cars
With an innovative Blocks System you can create your unique car model and then the Painting System gives you an unprecedented level of freedom by choosing colors, templates, patterns, decals and colorable shapes for your uniquely created cars.

Car Attributes and Leveling System
Players gain experience points and collect performance points to level-up and increase their car’s attributes like in a classic RPG system.

Virtual Items Market
An integrated virtual items market with over 500 items and a large selection of options that you can test on your car in real time dealing with accessories, car’s parts and blocks, decals and visuals, services and bundle packs.

Online Events
The players in Victory participate in online official events and can create championships with friends and team mates.

About Vae Victis

Vae Victis is an independent game development studio based in Italy. Founded in 2007, Vae Victis is focused on the development of a fully integrated racing game engine and social network platform to run its original IPs with a free to play business model.

Vae Victis is located in Cesena, a small town on the east coast of Italy and part of the world famous italian motor valley: home of the Ferrari, Ducati, Maserati, Lamborghini… and in general of the world’s most incredible gearheads.

About GamersFirst

GamersFirst is the leading Free2Play® MMO game publisher in the Western hemisphere. Serving over 28 million players, GamersFirst.com is where gamers gather to decide the price of the games they love to play–even when that price is “free.” Powered by GamersFirst CONNECT; the end-to-end game publishing, game operations, rapid game deployment and game community platform made available to all of GamersFirst’s Development Partners, GamersFirst.com features the hit MMO RPG and MMO FPS games War Rock, Knight Online, Sword of the New World and the future hits Parabellum, Victory, GoGoRacer and Taikodom.

About E3 Expo 2010

E3 Expo is the world’s premiere trade show for computer and video games and related products. The show is owned by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the U.S. association dedicated to serving the business and public affairs needs of the companies, publishing interactive games for video game consoles, handheld devices, personal computers, and the Internet.

Inspired by the seventies formula 1 cars, the Semi-Pro Class will introduce a different car handling and driving experience: a even more realistic approach, with a mid-level difficulty towards the third and last class, the Pro Class.

The Semi-Pro is an esthetic mix between the Seventies and the post-apocalyptic fiction world of Victory: The Age of Racing

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2010/03/18/victory-the-age-of-racing-gdc-2010-teaser-trailer/feed/1Victory Dev Leaks 05: Victory 0.5 Walkthrough Videohttp://vaevictis.it/2010/02/10/victory-dev-leaks-05-victory-0-5-walkthrough-video/
http://vaevictis.it/2010/02/10/victory-dev-leaks-05-victory-0-5-walkthrough-video/#respondWed, 10 Feb 2010 10:59:11 +0000http://blog.vaevictis.it/?p=529It’s a long video initially created for internal use only, but you can now watch it, it’s a complete walkthrough of the last available Alpha of Victory, where you can see the car creation, development and the market area. Enjoy!

The creative designer for Victory: The Age of Racing sat down and answered our questions about this upcoming game.

We first saw Victory: The Age of Racing at E3, 2009 and were very impressed with the look of the game. A racing MMO that will be accessable MMO/FPS style through the gamers first platform. Well the game has come a long way since then and we wanted to check up on it and see how close they were to realizing the project. A small studio in Italy called Vae Victis (As proclaimed by the Gaul leader Brennus in 387BC) is the maker of creater of the project and Antonio Moro the crative designer was kind enough to answer some questions about the game for us.

Q: Being the Creative Designer, are you happy with the game so far and is the development cycle at the stage you expected it to be at this point?

A: Yes, I’m really happy with the results until now. We’re a really small development team, 15 people, but I think that we’re creating something really new, with a lot of new ideas in it, and this is very important: for me as a professional and for the players.

Q: The graphics have always impressed us in screen shots and the sneak peek videos. Can we look forward to them looking that smooth and beautiful in game?

A: Absolutely. The first screenshots were created with all the effects turned on at the maximum detail.. we’re now trying to lower as much as possible the hardware requirements to have that beautiful graphics also on computers that are not the top of the line.. we’re developing a free to play game that will be hopefully played by millions of players: the hardware requirements are one of the key factor to have a success and we’re working hard to produce a game that is scalable and so playable by the vast majority of gamers out there.

Q: Will the game support game controllers of any type like game pads and steering wheels?

A: Actually the game controls are one of the key innovations of Victory: we’ve developed a new system that lets you control your car just with the keyboard in a way before never seen: you use the usual arrow keys, but you really feel the car and you can finally drive it as you’re using a steering wheel, thanks to a series of driving aids that we’ve developed.

Not only that: you can connect your favorite gamepad (Xbox 360, Logitech, PS2, PS3 gamepads are supported right now) and use it: you will race with “keyboard” users without even notice thanks to our system, we don’t want to divide the players by the controller used and we’re working really hard right now to balance the game for the different controller types.

Finally you can use your mouse to control the game: we’re very proud of what we’ve developed here, you move left and right your mouse to have an analog steering and left/right click to throttle and brake.. it sounds weird, but I assure you that you can drive a car really well with this method, our testers are loving it! We support steering wheels (G25, etc) natively, but we decided for now to not include the support for steering as I said we want all the players to play together with the three different controls type (keyboard, gamepad, mouse) and we’re balancing the game for them.. it’s plain impossible to balance the game if you include also the steerign wheel in the possible controls.. we’ll maybe include it in the future, creating different legues for the players that absolutely wants to use a steering wheel.

Q: Is Gamers First still your publisher?

A: Yes it is! we’re very proud to publish the game with Gamersfirst in North and South America, Europe, Turkey and India.

Q: We know Victory is an MMO but what we do not know is how we will socialize in the game. Is it set up as a persistent world where players congregate in a central virtual hub (like a large room or park or city) or will it be handled like a MMO/FPS where players meet in ready rooms to set up there matches?

A: Right now it will be handled like a MMO/FPS, we will have teams, friends, friend’s activities, achievements, etc.. In the future we want to have social persistent hubs (like a racing bar, market, etc.), we will continue to expand the game in the next years and we have lots of new ideas for it.

Well there you have it folks. The game sounds like it is coming along very nicly. The different ways to control the cars also is a great sounding balance of variety. Hopefully soon you will be racing the time away in this great looking project.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2010/02/10/gamesnafu-com-exclusive-antonio-moro-answers-our-questions/feed/0End of Year Message from Vae Victishttp://vaevictis.it/2009/12/22/end-of-year-message-from-vae-victis/
http://vaevictis.it/2009/12/22/end-of-year-message-from-vae-victis/#respondTue, 22 Dec 2009 19:45:30 +0000http://blog.vaevictis.it/?p=510Season’s greetings from all the Vae Victis’ team, I’m here to update you, our fans, partners and friends, on what we’ve done and what we’ll do next.

After two years of hard work we’re so happy to play Victory internally every lunch break and evening: it’s so awesome to play your own game! Soon you will play it too and we hope you will enjoy it as we are now.

All the team is now involved in the development of Victory, we’re finishing the 0.5 version, this is a major milestone for us as it includes the Market section.

We’ll take a brief pause during Christmas and then start the new year (and a new decade!) in full throttle mode to finish the development of Victory in march as expected.

Our plan is to have the closed and open beta during the Spring and then present the commercial version at the 2010 Los Angeles E3 Expo in June where our western publisher, Gamersfirst.com, will have a big event presenting a lot of great free to play new games.

There is no time more fitting to say “Thank You” and to wish you a Happy Holiday Season and a New Year of health, happiness and prosperity.

Enjoy the new Victory trailer, see you in 2010, the year of Victory!

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2009/12/22/end-of-year-message-from-vae-victis/feed/0Mmorpgitalia.it / ESCLUSIVA – Intervista a Vae Victishttp://vaevictis.it/2009/11/30/mmorpgitalia-it-esclusiva-intervista-a-vae-victis/
http://vaevictis.it/2009/11/30/mmorpgitalia-it-esclusiva-intervista-a-vae-victis/#commentsMon, 30 Nov 2009 09:23:31 +0000http://blog.vaevictis.it/?p=503Mmorpgitalia.it, one of the leading italian websites about mmorpgs / massive online games, just published a long interview with Antonio Moro, our creative director, about Victory: The Age of Racing.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2009/11/02/gamesushi-it-vae-victis-un-bellesempio-italiano/feed/0gamesushi.it / Made in Italy – Il massive gaming in Italiahttp://vaevictis.it/2009/10/23/gamesushi-it-made-in-italy-il-massive-gaming-in-italia/
http://vaevictis.it/2009/10/23/gamesushi-it-made-in-italy-il-massive-gaming-in-italia/#respondThu, 22 Oct 2009 22:21:38 +0000http://blog.vaevictis.it/?p=487An interesting article about the MMO development in Italy, with a big reference about Vae Victis on gamesushi.it:

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2009/10/23/gamesushi-it-made-in-italy-il-massive-gaming-in-italia/feed/0Vae Victis partner of the University of Verona.http://vaevictis.it/2009/10/12/vae-victis-partner-of-the-university-of-verona/
http://vaevictis.it/2009/10/12/vae-victis-partner-of-the-university-of-verona/#commentsMon, 12 Oct 2009 11:13:14 +0000http://blog.vaevictis.it/?p=436Vae Victis is one of the partners of the Master of Computer Game Development at the University of Verona, Italy.

We will welcome students of this new and promising Master and hope to find some new talents for our Cesena studio.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2009/10/12/vae-victis-partner-of-the-university-of-verona/feed/1Vae Victis at the Milan IVDC 2009http://vaevictis.it/2009/10/05/vae-victis-at-the-milan-ivdc-2009/
http://vaevictis.it/2009/10/05/vae-victis-at-the-milan-ivdc-2009/#respondMon, 05 Oct 2009 09:16:38 +0000http://blog.vaevictis.it/?p=429Vae Victis will be at the Italian Videogame Developer Conference on the 8th and 9th of October.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2009/08/12/magazine-win-magazine-giochi-victory-the-age-of-racing/feed/0Vae Victis at the GDC/GamesCom 2009 in Colognehttp://vaevictis.it/2009/08/05/vae-victis-at-the-gdcgamescom-2009-in-cologne/
http://vaevictis.it/2009/08/05/vae-victis-at-the-gdcgamescom-2009-in-cologne/#respondWed, 05 Aug 2009 08:41:59 +0000http://blog.vaevictis.it/?p=373Vae Victis will be at the Cologne GDC and GamesCom on August 17-23 2009.

Please contact Charles Speyer if you’re interested in meeting us in Los Angeles for business development purposes.

We will be available for press presentations only on wednesday, 19th: please contact Bryan Davies for any press inquiries.

We’re working hard on the design of the various car “blocks” for the three different starting classes of the game (Rookie, Semi-Pro, Pro), here’s some of the blocks we’re designing for the Rookie class. We’ll release 10+10+10 blocks for each car class for the release of the game.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2009/07/15/victory-dev-leaks-01-car-blocks/feed/0Motormusicmag.com / E3 – Top Car Gameshttp://vaevictis.it/2009/07/08/motormusicmagcom-e3-top-car-games/
http://vaevictis.it/2009/07/08/motormusicmagcom-e3-top-car-games/#respondWed, 08 Jul 2009 07:41:01 +0000http://blog.vaevictis.it/?p=322The 2009 E3 was a turnaround for the show, which, despite a thriving game market, suffered a steep decline in visibility and relevance after 2006 when the ESA decided to split E3 into two separate events—a “media and business summit” and a consumer event called “E for All.” Neither event attracted the vendor participation, industry visibility and buzz that this year’s E3 garnered.

There was a plethora of cool new game offerings at the show—my personal favorite: Return To Castle Wolfenstein Two (to be released in early August). But what we’re most excited about are the car related titles. I’m only going to cover the hottest new automotive games and some cool gaming gear.

[…]

Victory: The Age of Racing
Race in a world inspired by the 1960’s Formula One Racing scene, as you take your custom built racer around hairpin turns, swerve past your opponents and accelerate towards the finish line. A variety of fully customizable vintage racecars and a realistic physics engine give you the thrill of driving over 200 mph in closed course tracks and through village streets. See the trailer and sign up to be among the first to get Beta news and updates here.

Victory is featured on page 23 of the july edition of GMC, the top selling videogame magazine in Italy.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2009/07/02/magazine-gpimc-victory-age-of-racing/feed/0IGN.com / The State of Free to Play in the Westhttp://vaevictis.it/2009/06/30/igncom-the-state-of-free-to-play-in-the-west/
http://vaevictis.it/2009/06/30/igncom-the-state-of-free-to-play-in-the-west/#respondTue, 30 Jun 2009 15:01:29 +0000http://blog.vaevictis.it/?p=288The western free to play market has changed drastically in the last few years. This category of games was once seen as an oddity of the Far East, one that would not make a viable business model in this hemisphers. This idea has now changed. The past year or so saw a flood of new titles entering the market here. But will this trend last?

We will continue to see the free to play sector maturing here in the west. This is good as the market forces will allow the cream of the crop to rise, and the rest to fall. I hope we can look forward to a higher standard of games

The influx of free to play titles in 2008 has led to a state of market saturation. The initial success of a few key publishers has proven that the business model is only feasible, but rather profitable. In light of this new perspective on the space, a rush of companies is now trying to enter this lucrative sector. If you examine any list of titles currently available online, you can see a drastic difference in the number of them now as opposed to last year at this time.

Usually, an increase in product variation means that consumers win out. However, with the free to play segment, this rush to enter the market is bad for both the companies currently in it and consumers alike. Some of the newcomers trying to get started quickly are exhibiting risky behavior to get their respective pieces of the pie. Games developed in eastern countries are licensed without consideration of whether or not they will be good fits for the western audience. Such publishers can also be offering service without fully understanding the market, and further convoluting the selection of titles available.

This is not only bad for the market; it is bad for consumers as well. The situation is not helped by a low level of differentiation among free to play games. With too many of them available, and with quite a few being very similar, it makes it harder for users to find the ones that are right for them.

That isn’t all; there are various other problems associated with the current state of the western free to play market. As it has become saturated, is has become harder to operate and publish new ones. It is also more difficult license them now. There is more competition for the same limited ad space. And worst of all, the total selection is growing much faster than the user base.

Because the present size of the target audience for free to play games is limited, not all of them can be successful. It was easier in the early days of the category, when the total quantity offered was more limited. There was a higher tolerance for lower quality ones. This is one of the reasons why the free sector sometimes has a bad reputation; many releases are not comparable to their subscription-based counterparts.

Now that the market is saturated with many similar games, it will soon be time for a shake up. There are not enough users to support the still increasing number available. This will lead to several things. The first is that it’s now much harder to bring new ones here and to launch them successfully. With so many similar ones out there for people to choose from, publishers must strive to find titles that can distinguish themselves from all the rest.

With so many titles in the market and not enough users, there will need to be a consolidation. Not all of them can survive. With so many to choose from, users’ tolerance for mediocre ones is rapidly diminishing. Only those that can differentiate themselves from the pack will be successful. Older ones with large established player bases will continue to thrive, as community is king in the massively multiplayer genre.

We will continue to see the free to play sector maturing here in the west. This is good as the market forces will allow the cream of the crop to rise, and the rest to fall. I hope we can look forward to a higher standard of games, which can bring increased respect to the category.

]]>http://vaevictis.it/2009/06/24/gamesourceit-pit-stop-alla-vae-victis-photo-tour/feed/0Mmorpg.com: F2P Spreads Westhttp://vaevictis.it/2009/06/23/mmorpgcom-f2p-spreads-west/
http://vaevictis.it/2009/06/23/mmorpgcom-f2p-spreads-west/#respondTue, 23 Jun 2009 09:52:27 +0000http://blog.vaevictis.it/?p=277An interesting article on how the Free to play business model is spreading to the Western market by Richard Aihoshi on Mmorpg.com
A couple of weeks ago, Turbine made the rather intriguing announcement that it will enter the free to play market this summer with Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited, which is referred to as a digital upgrade to its 2006 subscription title. The press release didn’t really say anything as to when or why this came about, and I’ve seen nothing in this regard since. As a result, I can only speculate the seemingly obvious, that the company feels the game has more potential to move forward with a change of business model.

One thing I find interesting is that SOE took the same step quite recently with the launch of Free Realms. However, it was developed from the ground up, which means the decision to do so was made some time ago. I have no way of knowing whether this factored into Turbine’s thinking or if the timing was purely coincidental. What’s very clear, however, is that F2P is continuing to gain prominence within the western market.

And let’s not forget that neither was first major subscription MMOG publisher in this hemisphere to make a move in this direction. Just off the top of my head, Funcom shifted Anarchy Online over a few years ago, and NCsoft released Dungeon Runners in the second quarter of 2007. I can’t help but wonder how long it will be before more of the other major players in the industry opt to join them.

EA is a pretty interesting candidate. The movers and shakers there can’t be happy about Activision Blizzard’s dominant market position. WAR was never a serious candidate to challenge WoW, and almost certainly hasn’t performed up to expectations. SWTOR likely has more potential, largely due to the tremendous popularity of its underlying property, but would you actually bet on it taking over the market leadership position?

If we assume that the likelihood of winning the battle for the online space with a heads-on approach is questionable, then what’s the alternative? Yes, an indirect one. And what’s the most attractive possibility? Sure, going the F2P route won’t win the war in terms of subscriber numbers. But that’s not what the bean counters count. Revenue and especially profit are what matter to them.

Microsoft also crossed my mind. How long can the software giant ignore the large and rapidly growing revenue stream that is online gaming, including subscription, F2P any other business models? While it’s not the market leader, EA at least has a significant presence in the sector. But not Big Brother, which has a history marked by various missteps and false starts. Will Bill and his boys be content to watch from outside, saying they gave it a try and failed? And do they think it was their best shot?

Also, what about Blizzard? It’s tempting to regard it as the last publisher that would consider F2P. After all, why tamper with the subscription formula when it’s so lucrative? Well, there’s at least a possible answer in that half of WoW’s subscribers actually aren’t, not in the sense of paying a flat monthly fee. I’m talking about the ones in China, who buy bundles of hours, which they can then use when they please.

In addition, the company has seen the power of F2P to drive significant user numbers there. The last comparative figures I recall seeing were prior to Lich King. At that time, WoW had something like 800,000 peak concurrent users. It trailed a game called Zhengtu Online as well as the market leader, Fantasy Westward Journey, which was well ahead with something in the area of 1.5 million. PCU doesn’t directly correlate with profitability. However, the more players you have, the greater the potential to monetize them, which isn’t limited to virtual item purchases.

In that particular topic area, it seems worth noting that DDO Unlimited isn’t completely F2P with the “standard” item mall. Instead, it uses a hybrid revenue scheme where some of the content is deemed premium, and is only available to those who pay to play. The available specifics are rather limited. The official website tells us “Free content is widely available for low-level characters and becomes sparser as a character’s level increases.” It also says free players will have to pay if they wish to unlock certain classes such as the Monk, or to gain access to the Warforged and Drow races.

As I’ve mentioned in my recent column on trends I’m tracking, I expect we’ll see more games offering payment schemes aside from straight subscription or item sales. Sometimes, I even wonder about both together. Wouldn’t that be interesting?

Richard Aihoshi has been writing about MMOGs since the mid-1990s, always with a global perspective. As a result, he has observed the emergence and growth of the free to play business model from its early days in both hemispheres.
He is the former Editor of RPG Vault and his column, focusing on free to play MMOs, appears on MMORPG.com every Monday.